Hand Plane Types Explained

The hand plane numbering system is a nineteenth-century catalog convention that nobody has updated, and it confuses more beginners than any other part of woodworking. Here is the whole thing: the number describes the length of the sole, and the length determines the job.

That is genuinely it. A longer sole bridges the hollows in a board and cuts only the high spots, which makes a board straight. A shorter sole follows the surface it is on, which makes a board smooth but not necessarily flat. Every bench plane in the numbered series does the same thing — the difference is how far apart its ends are.

The bench plane numbers

No. 3 — small smoother (about 8 in)

A lighter smoothing plane for small work and for anyone who finds a No. 4 heavy. Uncommon as a first plane and easy to skip.

No. 4 — smoothing plane (about 9 in)

The classic finishing plane. Set fine, it takes gossamer shavings and leaves a surface with a clarity sandpaper cannot match, because the fibers are severed cleanly rather than abraded. Too short to straighten an edge reliably. This is the plane most people picture when they picture a hand plane, and the third one most people should buy.

No. 5 — jack plane (about 14 in)

The genuine do-everything plane, and the one we recommend most often. Long enough to straighten an edge, short enough to work a face, and it can be set coarse for stock removal or fine for smoothing. "Jack" as in jack-of-all-trades — the name is the recommendation. If you buy one bench plane, buy this.

No. 6 — fore plane (about 18 in)

A long jack, or a short jointer, depending on who is describing it. Genuinely useful and genuinely skippable — most shops go from a No. 5 to a No. 7.

No. 7 and No. 8 — jointer planes (22 in and 24 in)

Long, heavy planes for making edges dead straight over a length — the hand-tool equivalent of a jointer. Wonderful on long edge joints, tiring on anything else, and a specialist purchase rather than a starter.

The planes that are not numbered

Block plane

Small, one-handed, with the blade bedded at a low angle and the bevel facing up. The low angle slices end grain where a bench plane tears it, which is what makes this the most-used plane in most shops: trimming end grain, easing arrises, fitting a drawer that binds, flushing a proud plug or dowel. If you buy one plane of any kind, buy this one.

Shoulder plane

The blade extends the full width of the body so it can cut right into a corner. Its job is trimming tenon cheeks and shoulders to a perfect fit — see how to cut a mortise and tenon. A specialist, but the specialist that turns an acceptable tenon into an invisible one.

Rabbet (rebate) plane

Cuts a step along the edge of a board. Overlaps heavily with what a router table does faster, which is why few modern shops own one.

Router plane

Nothing to do with an electric router. It cuts a recess to a consistent depth below the surface — hinge mortises, dado bottoms, tenon cheeks. Niche, and beloved by the people who own one.

Scrub plane

A heavily cambered iron and a wide-open mouth for removing a lot of wood fast across the grain. Rough work, not finish work — the hand-tool answer to a thicknesser, and hard labor.

Bevel-up or bevel-down?

Traditional bench planes bed the iron bevel-down at about 45 degrees. Bevel-up planes bed it at a low angle with the bevel facing up, which means you can change the effective cutting angle just by honing a different bevel — low for end grain, high for figured woods that tear out. Bevel-up planes are simpler mechanically and popular with people who like one plane and several irons. Neither is better; bevel-down is more common and has more second-hand support.

How few can you own?

Two, comfortably: a block plane and a No. 5 jack. The block handles end grain and small trimming; the jack straightens edges, flattens faces and smooths acceptably. That pair covers the great majority of hand-plane work in a shop that also owns power tools.

Add a No. 4 third, when you want a better final surface than the jack gives. Add a shoulder plane fourth, when you start cutting tenons by hand. Add a No. 7fifth, if you find yourself jointing long edges by hand often — and by then you will know whether you do. Our hand plane roundup covers which model to buy at each of those steps.

The thing that matters more than which plane

Sharpness. A No. 4 with a keen iron outperforms a No. 7 with a dull one at every task, including the No. 7's own job. Every plane arrives needing honing, and a plane iron is sharpened exactly like a chisel — flatten the back once, hone the bevel through the grits, remove the burr. The method is in our sharpening guide and the stones are in our sharpening stone roundup. Solve sharpening before you buy a second plane.

What we could not verify

The plane lengths above are the standard nominal sizes for the numbered series as published by manufacturers; individual models vary by a fraction of an inch. We have not conducted comparative surface-quality tests between plane types — the descriptions of what each plane is for are the standard, widely documented uses, laid out plainly.